Weekly Interview #4 - Hannah Ward

Tell us about yourself and your work.

My artwork explores the fragility of the physical body and the ease with which it can be transformed. I am interested in the fusion of the grotesque and the beautiful. I work with a large range of media and my imagery is, in one way or another, derived from local woodland animals. I was raised in the country with a great appreciation of nature. My works reference childhood memories, dream imagery, taxidermy practices and their parallels to human conditions and relationships

What got you started? What keeps you in?I’ve always been involved with both the visual and performing arts and struggled with trying to formulate a career in them. I was interested in pursuing scientific and medical illustration for a long time, which still has a great impact on my imagery and source materials. Eventually, producing art no longer consisted of tasks or projects and became a very natural drive. Art has become a ritual for me, a way to sort out my fixations. It is how I manage to process everything I experience outside of the studio.

What/who inspires you? In what way?I am inspired by my surroundings, conversations, the people I care for, film, words, anxieties, andmoments that I find confusing or overwhelming. I have a need to reconfigure and process why thesethings are meaningful. I am also interested in the need to salvage the sensations I experience…in the need to literally create something new from what has been broken.

What is art for you? Examples of "real art"?Art is my vocabulary, my relief, and my obsession. I think art is a documentation of the visceral.

Visual arts play the most important role in my life, but they are fueled greatly by music, language, and all of my senses. I think it’s important to allow these things to overlap.

Plans for future (of your work)?

Right now, I just want to push myself past my limits. I want to refine and expand upon my visuallanguage. I’m also working towards further expanding my range of media and experimenting with more sculptural forms.